Daily Archives: 2 Nov 2017

It’s time Christians face the fact that the GOP is the Greedy Opportunistic Philanderers now with no resemblance to the party of Lincoln. It’s time they realize that Paul Ryan, a member of the cult of Ayn Rand, Mitch McConnell, a member of the cult of cowardice, and Donald Trump, a member of the cult of perversity, have utterly effaced any semblace of morals or virtue and have made selfishness the Party Creed.

Lincoln’s Republican Party, a true lighthouse of virtue and decency, has been replaced by the vilest scum and most hellish depravity this Country has ever seen. The Lord God Almighty has been forsaken and the modern GOP is nothing more than a den of thieves.

God’s righteous wrath cannot descend into its craven and vile midst too soon and when he judges it, and its leaders are utterly ruined, and cast down like a stench festooned menstrual rag along with all the fake Christians like Eric Metaxas and Jerry Falwell Jr and Pat Robertson and Robert Jeffress, and Franklin Graham and Paula White and Jim Bakker and the rest, no angel in heaven will weep, and every demon in hell will rejoice because of the damned wretches they know are headed heir way.

Flee the Sodom and Gomorrah called the GOP, or be swept up with it in its just judgment.

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This damned ass-pope and his accursed school of scoundrels in Rome take such great, immeasurable pleasure in making a monkey, fool, and laughingstock of the poor Christian man, indeed, in blaspheming against God in heaven and causing such idolatry in his holy church—he laughs up his sleeve to see such blasphemous, idolatrous lies worshiped, and robs and steals the goods and obedience of the whole world for it—that one is forced to understand that the papacy is (as was said above) the very image of the devil set in the church by the devil to do nothing but instigate lies, blasphemy, and idolatry in order to destroy faith and God’s word, and thus rob the world under him of all it has and owns and lead all the souls to the devil.

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A former chief of staff for the U.S. Bishops’ committee on doctrine has written to Pope Francis saying his pontificate is marked by “chronic confusion” and warning that teaching with a “seemingly intentional lack of clarity risks sinning against the Holy Spirit.”

Capuchin Father Thomas Weinandy, who is now a member of the Vatican’s International Theological Commission, criticized the Pope for “demeaning” the importance of doctrine, committing “calumny” against some of his critics, and appointing bishops who “scandalize” believers with dubious “teaching and pastoral practice.”

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The distinction between Law and Gospel, for Luther, is about how the human person is justified by faith alone apart from works in the event of Christ and the encounter with God in Christ. The offense in this is that works, according to Luther, have no meritorious component, there’s no way to hold God to the bargain: I’ve done my part now you have to do yours. Rather, we are forced to walk in the darkness of faith and trusting fully this God as revealed by Christ, placing all of our hope and assurance in God, by faith in Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Read the whole. It’s the only reason to visit that blog.

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Pope Francis has requested a debate over allowing married men in the Amazon region of Brazil to become priests, in a controversial move that is likely to outrage conservatives in the Church, Vatican sources say.

The pontiff took the decision to put a partial lifting of priestly celibacy up for discussion and a possible vote by Brazilian bishops following a request made by Cardinal Claudio Hummes, the president of the Episcopal Commission for the Amazon, Il Messaggero newspaper quoted the sources saying.

Cardinal Hummes reportedly asked Francis to consider ordaining so-called viri probati, married men of great faith, capable of ministering spiritually to the many remote communities in the Amazon where there is a shortage of priests, and evangelical Christians and pagan sects are displacing Catholicism.

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From its humble beginnings as a shelf of used books in a back room to its current location on Oak Industrial Drive, the Eerdmans Bookstore has been a fixture in the theological book world for the better part of a century. The store will remain open through December 2017, offering discounts on its remaining inventory.

To mark the special place the Eerdmans Bookstore has been to so many over the years, we’ll be publishing a retrospective of the store’s history here on Eerdword in the coming days.

My mood has taken a dark turn.

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In 2014, HGTV crews followed Jen and Brandon Hatmaker’s quest to overhaul an old farmhouse for their growing family in hit show “My Big Family Renovation.” Now the home improvement cable channel has confirmed that they have asked the Hatmakers back for a new series entitled “My Biblical Doctrine Renovation.”

“The Hatmakers have an uncanny knack for tearing down old, worn-out, traditional things and replacing them with new, shiny fixtures and appliances, and they’ll be using these skills to renovate a traditional teaching from Scripture in each episode,” said an HGTV spokesperson.

“In every fun, relatable episode of the show, the Hatmakers will take a boring, traditional biblical doctrine, rip it to shreds using words like ‘tender’ and ‘nuanced,’ and replace it with something much more modern and acceptable,” the spokesperson said as part of the official announcement on the cable channel’s website.

“Viewers will get to see the detailed, step-by-step process of updating out-of-vogue beliefs into something cutting-edge and trendy.”

According to an early episode guide obtained by reporters, the Hatmakers will turn their renovation skills to the traditional understanding of doctrines like sin, gay marriage, hell, and the church.

At publishing time, Jen Hatmaker had tweeted that she was so excited to begin casting aside centuries of church doctrinal agreement in favor of her own vision that she “can’t even.”

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Here she is, the Project Leader of the Bonhoeffer and fashion section, Professor Charlotte von Barth, taking a break from her busy schedule to sit down with us for a discussion about Bonhoeffer and fashion:

Q: Your work in fashion and theology is world famous. How did you get interested in the subject?

A: I was reading a biography of Bonhoeffer and I noticed how sharply he was dressed. So I dug into his background and learned that he mixed theology and fashion and had even designed his own ‘Hitler murder plot’ line of clothing.

Q: How would you describe Bonhoeffer’s fashion sense?

A: Festive- as you can see from my own outfit, which I call ‘Bonhoeffer and bullets’. Did you know, by the way, that Bonhoeffer designed all of the clothes that Charlotte von Kirschbaum wore when she went to the Bergli to ‘write’ (wink wink nudge nudge) with Barth? He called that line the ‘CVK KB Collection’.

Q: Did Bonhoeffer’s theology play a direct part in your decisions?

A: No, not really. His theology is so boring, so trite, and so empty, that if I were to use it as a pallet, it would be grey and dark.

Q: So, Bonhoeffer’s fashion is more important to you than his theology?

A: Yes.

Q: Then who’s theology does play a significant role?

A: Moltmann’s.

Q: That’s very interesting. Why Moltmann?

A: Because his name reminds me of molting which reminds me of a bird which reminds me of colors. And that is my inspiration! Molting birds!!! MOLTING MAN!

Q: Well that makes perfect sense then. Thank you for your time.

A: And thank you for your questions. And, if I may offer you some advice- get more colorful clothing. It’s what Bonhoeffer would want. And the redder, the better. He did like blood.

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Thirteen months ago, we kicked off our series of Refo Thursday posts with my initial reflections on Luther’s deathbed remark. In between, we’ve heard from everyone from seminary professors to songwriters to bloggers to pastors to farmers to college students to our own staff. They’ve reflected on quotes from Martin Luther and John Calvin in great quantity, but also from many others who contributed to the turbulent sixteenth century: Katie Luther, Erasmus, Menno Simons, Thomas Cranmer, Jeanne d’Albret, Katharina Zell, Philipp Melanchthon, Huldrych Zwingli, Pierre Viret, Johannes Bugenhagen, Argula von Grumbach, Catherine Parr, and Andreas Karlstadt. We’ve thought about issues of prayer, Scripture, fasting, church fellowship, worship, and following Christ–but also about education, war, suffering, marriage, children, politics, and so much more. Life, really.

Enjoy the rest.

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If you want to know what’s wrong with America, look in the mirror and blame yourself for sending the same criminals to Congress that you always vote for. Because you like your guy and blame everything on everyone else’s guy. Never realizing that the entire Congress, every member, each and every single one of them, is corruption enfleshed.